Douglas v. Kriegsfeld Corp.

I regret that I am unable to agree with the disposition of this appeal by my colleagues in the majority. The court reverses a judgment of possession entered in favor of the landlord even though, in flagrant violation of the lease and of the law, the tenant, who was said to be suffering from a “mood disorder,” had turned a clean and sanitary apartment into a filthy and foul-smelling one. Indeed, by the time the case came to trial, the tenant had lived in the most unsanitary (as well as unlawful) conditions for almost a year since the situation was discovered, and for ten months since she…